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AI Science Technology

AI Could Improve Welfare of Farmed Chickens By Listening To Their Squawks (theguardian.com) 37

Posted by msmash from the squawk-squawk dept.
Artificial intelligence that could improve the welfare of farmed chickens by eavesdropping on their squawks could become available within five years, researchers say. From a report: The technology, which detects and quantifies distress calls made by chickens housed in huge indoor sheds, correctly distinguished distress calls from other barn noises with 97% accuracy, new research suggests. A similar approach could eventually be used to drive up welfare standards in other farmed animals. Each year, about 25 billion chickens are farmed around the world -- many of them in huge sheds, each housing thousands of birds. One way to assess the welfare of such creatures is to listen to the sounds that they make.

"Chickens are very vocal, but the distress call tends to be louder than the others, and is what we would describe as a pure tonal call," said Alan McElligott, an associate professor of animal behaviour and welfare at the City University of Hong Kong. "Even to the untrained ear, it's not too difficult to pick them out." In theory, farmers could use chickens' calls to gauge their level of distress, and enrich their housing where necessary. However, in commercial flocks containing thousands, or tens of thousands of chickens, deploying human observers is impractical. For one thing, their presence could further stress the flock, but with so many birds, objectively quantifying the number of distress calls is impossible, McElligott said.
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AI Could Improve Welfare of Farmed Chickens By Listening To Their Squawks More

AI Could Improve Welfare of Farmed Chickens By Listening To Their Squawks

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  • Seriously, WTF msmash? You are really opening up yourself to the "drop the A" reactions on this dupe.

  • Jeez (Score:2)

    by lsllll ( 830002 )
    For a few seconds I was wondering why my browser was showing me a cached version of Slashdot every time I refreshed. Then I scrolled down and did a facepalm.
  • Why is this new found concern for the welfare of the chickens? These birds evolved to compete with one another and they don't ask for welfare or comfort, all they want is food, then water, then mates.

    People who eat lobsters drop live lobsters in boiling water, and the adrenaline released by the dying animal makes it an appetizing red instead of the dull brown color. Further they found if you blind these lobsters they grow even bigger and tastier, so they do that too.

    It makes you queasy? Then become a ve

    • Why is this new found concern for the welfare of the chickens?

      Because some people anthropomorphize livestock.

      My younger brother raises chickens and nature is absolutely cruel to them. He does his best to watch over them, but things happen. You see, not only do they taste delicious to us, but every carnivorous creature in the wild possessing teeth, claws and an inclination to use them is also up for some winner winner chicken dinner. At least we humans dispatch chickens cleanly and quickly. A fox, coyote, raccoon, etc. is just going to bite and claw its way to a me

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lsllll ( 830002 )
        I have a couple of friends and family who raise chickens on very small scales and they've been ravaged by foxes and cayotes a few times. It's an absolute mess when that happens, feathers and carnage everywhere, chickens left to bleed to death and so on. We're just a different kind of carnivore. I don't have any issues with eating chickens as long as I know they were humanely raised and killed. Chickens aren't like humans or some animals (like elephants or chimpanzees) whose death or disappearance of lov
    • American run of the mill chicken tastes like hot vinyl upholstery. The last decent chicken that I had was 15 years ago in Vietnam, and it was not Gai Ran Kentucky. American feedlot beef since around 1973, tastes like liver stress. Grass fed beef tastes like beef.

      • American run of the mill chicken tastes like hot vinyl upholstery.

        If you want chicken nuggets, you have to run chickens through a mill.

    • Re:Stressed chickens taste better? may be? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Thursday June 30, 2022 @10:15AM (#62662298)

      People who eat lobsters drop live lobsters in boiling water, and the adrenaline released by the dying animal makes it an appetizing red instead of the dull brown color.

      Is this like an urban legend? If I eat lobster i generally kill them with a knife just before steaming and they are no less red coming out of the pot. Steaming vs roasting will affect the color a lot. Why would adrenaline change the color of the shells anyway? Is there a study on this?

      On the whole though I don't think there's any type of hypocrisy in wanting to improve welfare conditions for animals raised for meat for other purposes.

      In the dairy industry it's already becoming very apparent that happier animals are more productive which is why things like automatic milking stations, where the cows can wander in when they feel full, automatic brushes and in general things that reduce stress increase yields. Better raised animals tend to produce better product.

      Go buy a cheap supermarket steak raised on grain in a factory farm and then go buy a premium grass fed steak from a pasture fed cow. There is a difference. Also I think it's our responsibility to do things humanely as technology advances. I love pork, it's the king of all meats but lets face it, pigs are smarter than dogs so if we are going to eat pigs I think we owe them a halfway decent life. Call me a hippy all you want.

      • Re:Stressed chickens taste better? may be? (Score:4)

        by omfglearntoplay ( 1163771 ) on Thursday June 30, 2022 @11:12AM (#62662452)

        Yep, this red vs. brown thing doesn't make any sense to me either... who came up with it?

        I also think there is no hypocrisy in eating animals but taking care of them as well as you can before that. Do they die in the wild? Sure, but putting 10,000 chickens in the equivalent of a stressful, packed like sardines, 200 decibel Justin Bieber concert 24x7 for their entire life is not what I'd call a decent life. They might want to take a nap. They might want to see the sun and something green outside.

        Yes, less stress, more natural surroundings... the steak is better, the eggs are better, etc. It matters for sure, which is a big reason these farmers investing in this technology.

    • Stressed animals never taste better. Ask any hunter if the meat tastes better or worse after a clean kill. Equating killing animals for food as an equally immoral act as animal cruelty is rather sad. Death row in a first world country is not the same cruelty as a concentration camp just because the end goal is the death of the inmates. The only reason anyone raises chickens in this manner is to reduce cost which always the reason for any other meat farming practice in The United States that have been banned

  • ..there is now an office-manager thinking "I wonder if it works for office-workers too?"

    Squawk!

  • One way to assess the welfare of such creatures is to listen to the sounds that they make.

    Birds can be conditioned to do things for rewards.
    What happens when these chickens learn they can get extra food / more space / heating - cooling simply by squawking louder?

    • What happens when these chickens learn they can get extra food / more space / heating - cooling simply by squawking louder?

      Just tell them "Squawk all you want, but we just don't have the votes in the Senate to give you want you're asking for." It works on people.

    • Then the chickens will flock to their new populist leader.

  • we could just raise the chickens on a pasture eating insects and things so they aren't distressed in the first place.

    • The local Acme supermarket (here in south NJ) carries both free-range eggs and whole chickens, which not only taste better, but cause fewer food intolerance and allergy problems for me. Whatever they inject plus use for feed in 'normal, cheap' chicken products aggravates my arthritis, usually within an hour. The free-range chickens cost a lot more though, the one I got last week was $15 for a smallish size.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jonadab ( 583620 )
      Or, we could let the chickens grow up standing on a stone slab, underneath a lava source, so that as soon as they grow up into adults they burn to death, and feathers and cooked chicken drop into the hopper minecart under the slab and end up in a storage chest. Better yet, add a couple hopper filters, and the feathers can end up in one storage chest, the cooked chicken in another one. And if either chest fills up all the way, the excess can be routed onto a cactus, to prevent lag. HTH.HAND.

  • Slashdot Could Improve Welfare of Readers By Listening To Their Squawks

  • The feeling you've heard this chicken shit before.

  • Free the chickens!

  • Hey, buddy, have you figured out how to break out of this cage?

  • This should also be applied to farming vegetables. It could listen to the vegetables with underground microphones and make sure they are sufficiently comfortable.

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